United in space: How we built the ISS

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary

4.3 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 21 December 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Celebrating 25 unbroken years of humans living in space, former international director of the UK Space Agency Dr Alice Bunn charts how nations put aside differences to create the ultimate symbol of human ingenuity and collaboration – a space station orbiting our planet that has been home to more than 300 people from 24 different nations.

Using mission control audio, news archive and personal stories, Alice illuminates acts of epic survival, humour and selflessness that made the station a reality. She investigates why a near fatal disaster on the Russian Mir space station spurred nations to commit to the ISS, and reveals how a Moscow basement and Hollywood royalty sparked bonding between Russians and Americans. She also discovers how quick thinking and plastic tape saved the station, allowing it to grow to the size of a football pitch, and how one astronaut came within seconds of drowning in space.

Looking into the future, Alice explores how the legacy of the ISS will be carried on by a new generation of private space stations, which have the power to push back the boundaries of science for the good of all humanity. The reduced gravity offers enormous possibilities, including creating materials impossible to create on Earth.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:07.0	It's a living, breathing organism that has protected my friends.
0:15.4	Livedaunt is set to occur 52 minutes, 47 seconds after the hour.
0:20.4	There is the most expensive project ever completed by humans.
0:24.2	We have ignition and lift off of the Soyuz rocket, beginning the first expedition to the International
0:29.4	Space Station.
0:30.8	This is a spacecraft traveling at 17,500 miles an hour with eight or ten people living and working there 365 days a year.
0:40.0	Soyuz heading toward a link up with the International Space Station two days from now.
0:44.8	On November 2nd, 2000, history was made.
0:49.2	I'm so proud of what the three of you have done and everyone here on the ground that has worked with you
0:55.0	to bring us to this moment.
0:56.0	Two Russians and one American entered the International Space Station for a 136-day mission.
1:03.0	Let's look upon this as the real opening of the International Space Frontier,
1:10.0	not just for a country, but for Russia, America,
1:14.6	Europe, Japan, Canada, and all that are to follow.
1:21.0	The first residents of the ISS, they began a quarter of a century of unbroken human presence in space.
1:30.3	You're listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service. I'm Dr. Alice Bunn, president of the UK Space Trade Association, UK Space. And this is United in Space. With help from people who made the ISS a reality, I want to explore
1:47.1	how a near-fatal disaster spurred nations to commit to the program. Why a Moscow basement and
1:53.8	Hollywood royalty sparked bonding between East and West, and how quick thinking and plastic tape
2:00.2	saved the station.
2:02.4	But first, I want to find out why the ISS has endured for a quarter of a century.
2:09.2	And who better to ask than an astronaut known as the Queen of Space?
	...

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